


Inheritance

by Anonymous



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Awesome Mrs. Hudson, Backstory, Gen, Homeless Network, POV Minor Character, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 18:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mrs. Hudson never expected to inherit anything from Sherlock when he died. But when he jumped from the roof of St. Bart's, he passed on to her a gift and a responsibility: the trust of the homeless network.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inheritance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ollipop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ollipop/gifts).



Martha was washing up after dinner when she heard a knock at the door. 

She hesitated, hands halfway submerged in suds. She was reluctant to answer the door these days. There were many well-wishers asking after her and John, or telling her that they believed in Sherlock no matter what the Daily Mail said. But there were more of the bad sort: reporters badgering her for interviews, enemies of Sherlock coming to gloat, and gawkers who wanted to see the place where the so-called criminal mastermind had lived. 

But there was something about that knock. It wasn't the doorbell, just a tentative rapping of knuckles, like the caller wasn't quite sure whether they wanted to be heard. That's what decided her. Martha left her dishes to soak and went to the door. 

There were two girls outside. They looked like sisters, with thick waves of dark hair and soft round faces. The older one had a grey cast beneath her deep reddish skin and dark hollows under her eyes. The younger one looked up at Martha with pleading eyes. 

“Are you Martha Hudson, ma'am?” the young one said. Her sister trembled and coughed.

“Yes, but – shall I pay for a cab to take you to hospital? You look ill, dear.”

“The hospital don't take her sort, ma'am,” the younger sister said. “Mr Holmes took all sorts, and he said if we needed help we could ask you. Can you help, ma'am?”

Martha felt a pang in her chest. These girls were part of Sherlock's homeless network. He'd trusted her to take care of them after he was gone. She didn't know what the girl meant when she said the hospital didn't take their sort, but she couldn't ignore this request from Sherlock from beyond the grave. 

“Of course,” she said. “Come inside, you'll catch chill.” 

The older sister leaned on the younger, coughing feebly, as they followed her into 221A. Martha wrapped the sick girl in a blanket and put on a kettle. She was going to the bathroom to raid the medicine cabinet when the sick girl spoke for the first time. Her voice rasped. “Are you Mr Holmes' Nan?”

For a moment, Martha didn't know how to answer. She wasn't Sherlock's grandmother, not really, but some part of her rebelled at the thought of replying to the question with a “no.” Sherlock didn't have a grandparent in his life, as far as she could tell. That older brother of his was a whole family rolled into one. And Sherlock had known that she would take care of the homeless network that he had, in his own way, cared for.

But if she had been Sherlock's grandmother, after a fashion, she hadn't done a very good job of it, had she?

“No,” said Martha. “Just his housekeeper.” Then she bustled into the bathroom, so the girls wouldn't have to see her dab at her eyes. 

From the medicine cabinet, she took a thermometer and a few different medications. She came back out of the bathroom and sat next to the sick girl on the sofa. She was so young, perhaps 18 years old, her sister about sixteen. “Let me take your temperature, dear,” she said. 

The girl opened her mouth, and Martha leaned in to place the thermometer under her tongue. It was then that she noticed the barest trace of stubble on the girl's chin and neck. So that was why she was afraid to go to hospital. Martha wished it weren't true, but she was probably right to be afraid. 

“Forty degrees, oh dear,” said Martha, reading the thermometer. “You need a fever reducer. Have either of you had anything to eat?”

The girls shook their heads. In the kitchen, the kettle whistled.

“Ah, there we are,” said Martha, already thinking of what she might cook up for them. “I'll have some tea in a tick. By the way, what are your names?”

The sisters exchanged a look. A silent conversation passed between them. It reminded Martha of how she and her husband used to talk like that, with just their eyes, sometimes. Finally, the younger girl said, “I'm Avanti, and my sister is Lila.”

Martha brought them tea and made Lila take her pills. By the time she was done thawing some soup from the freezer and frying up some tomatoes and sausage, Lila was barely awake enough to lift a spoon, but she forced the girl to eat, chivvied by her sister.

Martha wasn't young anymore, and she had a bad hip, so she had to stifle her urge to offer Lila the bed and sleep on the sofa. Instead, she cocooned the girl in enough blankets that hopefully she'd be comfortable. While Avanti was in the bathroom getting washed, Martha adjusted the pillows behind Lila's head.

“He told us you were his Nan, you know,” Lila murmured sleepily into her pillow. “Don't think he was far wrong.”

* * *

Another one showed up a few nights later. Martha already guessed when she heard a quiet knock instead of the doorbell. She put on a kettle before going to the door.

This time it was an adult woman, small but stocky, with a dark hoodie shading her face from the streetlights. “Excuse me, is this Martha Hudson?” she said stiffly, and Martha immediately recognized the tone of someone in pain.

“Yes, that's me. Are you one of Sherlock's friends, then?”

“I don't think he'd've called me a friend.”

“Nonsense. Of course you were his friend. Why else would he have sent you here? Come in, I'll get you tea and paracetamol.”

Once they were in Martha's flat and she'd set the kettle on the stove, the visitor cautiously pulled back her hood, letting her frizzy hair spring free. It was as Martha had suspected: she had a raw scrape on one cheek and a rapidly purpling bruise around the other eye. Martha inspected them clinically and went for paracetamol and her first aid kit. 

“Here, take two,” Martha said, counting out the pills. “And let me have a look at that scrape.”

“Are you a doctor?” the woman said, a little suspiciously.

“No,” said Martha, “but my friend is a very good one, and he's taught me a thing or two.” She watched the woman swallow the pills, then got out some disinfectant wipes. “Will you let me clean that scrape on your cheek, dear?”

The woman stared at her, then nodded stiffly. Martha rubbed the scrape with the disinfectant and saw her wince at the sting. “What's your name, then?”

Another wince. “Kay.”

“Do you have any other cuts or scrapes, Kay?”

Kay averted her dark eyes. “No. Just bruises.”

“Would you like some ice for that eye?”

“Maybe later.”

The kettle whistled. Martha made them each a cup of Assam and served the cups with a bowl of sugar. “I've got milk if you'd like,” she said.

“That's all right,” murmured Kay, taking her tea black. She looked around the flat as she breathed on the tea to cool it. Her gaze settled on a photograph of Martha with Gerald. They were on a boat, Gerald standing at the prow looking out to sea while Martha watched him admiringly. Gerald's hand reached back so Martha could hold it. Whatever he'd been looking at, it wasn't in the frame of the photograph. Martha couldn't remember. Kay's lips pressed together as she looked at the photo. Martha noticed her rub absently at the base of her left ring finger, conspicuously bare. John wasn't the only friend who had taught Martha a thing or two.

“That's my husband, Gerald,” Martha said, answering the question Kay hadn't asked. “He hurt me too.”

Kay's head whipped around. She set her teacup down so hard on the table that hot tea splashed on her hand, and she winced. “He doesn't – I don't – that's none of your business!”

“There's no shame in it,” said Martha. “It's hard not to love men like that. The love, the pain, it's all so strong and mixed together that you don't even know which is which, most of the time. But it's not worth it, in the end.”

“You don't know anything,” Kay sneered. “Look at you, in this nice flat. Women like me, they leave their men, they've got no place to go.”

“I suppose you're right,” said Martha. “I've got no right to tell you what choice to make. I said the same to all my friends who told me to leave Gerald. I kept saying it all of our married life, until I realized that all the women he stepped out with went missing a few months after he met them.”

Kay stared at her. “You really do know.”

“Really know what?”

“What it's like. Or a part of it, at least.”

“I'm afraid I don't know what you're trying to say,” said Martha, but she had a feeling she might know after all.

* * *

“If an emergency should arise while I'm gone, you may call on Martha Hudson for assistance. She lives in 221A. She will be discreet and willing to help as much as she can.”

“Why do you trust her?”

“Because she's my grandmother.”

“And why should _we_ trust her?”

A pause.

“Because she knows what it's like to live in fear.”


End file.
